Future-Proofing the Cloud With “Real RealTime” Solutions

In the cloud, iterations come fast and furious and feedback spreads instantly. Companies need monitoring that goes beyond real-time.

Anyone accessing the internet has interacted with the cloud and companies across disparate markets working to build or shift legacy apps into cloud services. Companies can make the move into cloud services easily, thanks to major cloud players that allow businesses to get set up quickly. But they’re also discovering the next challenge: How to manage these tools to ensure positive customer experiences.

New methods

“Out of the companies on the Fortune 500 in 2000, more than half are no longer on the list,” points out Karthik Rau, CEO of cloud monitoring company SignalFX. “That’s going to be even more pronounced over the next decade. What a lot of companies haven’t figured out is, how do you release software every day without suffering downtime?” Rau points to Amazon, which pushes updates seamlessly every 17 minutes, on average.

Cloud monitoring

The answer, according to SignalFX’s CMO, Tom Butta, is robust cloud monitoring. “We live in a world where the customer is in charge, and their experience is what matters. Gaining full visibility into all of your infrastructure and applications and services in what we call ‘real real-time’ is key.” Cloud monitoring is a set of tools that constantly evaluate cloud-based services and applications. Monitoring isn’t a new concept, but old-school batched or bundled reporting risks downtime, which can be devastating to your business. No matter the company size, a move into cloud services is eventually going to require a powerful, scalable cloud monitoring solution. Butta sees it as a fundamental aspect of customer care today. “My grandparents ran a bakery, and they knew everything about their customers. That’s easy to do with hundreds of customers, versus a brand like Nike that literally has four hundred million records.” The move to the cloud isn’t the endgame — it’s just the beginning. The key to surviving the cloud revolution is developing the ability to monitor and manage the cloud in real real-time.